Northern USA: Shut Up About Snow Already

I'm sick and tired of people and the media crowing on and on about SNOW. Fer the love of mike, if you live in places like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado and numerous other states where it snows…hello people: IT SNOWS DURING WINTER! Every damn snowfall is treated like a serious disaster. The tsunami - THAT was a fucking cataclysm. Thousands of people dead. Snowing in the midwest is normal, innocuous weather behavior, it's nothing to get worked up over. So you have to shovel, so going to work is slow, so your car goes into the ditch…so what? How long have you lived here anyway? The way people act around here you'd think they lived in Arizona their entire lives and just moved to Wisconsin. It snows in the winter, it happens every year. What is the big deal?

Naughty vs. Nice: YouTube & Flickr Commentary

As a unrecovering screen addict, I find myself quite often on both YouTube.com and Flickr.com. Both of these sites share a fundamental purpose: they display a small rectangle with an image in it posted by a certain user and below the image other users comment on it. YouTube does moving images and Flickr does stills (I know they do video too, but nevermind that for now…personally I never watched any video on Flickr). However, there are dramatic fundamental differences in the commentary:

YouTube comments are generally crude, nasty, mean-spirited, stupid, childish, horribly written and filled with senseless arguments between commenters often about issues outside of the subject of the video itself. No matter WHAT the video is about, if it has comments at all odds are good that they will be crude and moronic. The overriding impression I get from reading YouTube comments is that humanity is a vulgar assembly of idiots and the sooner the human race is wiped out the better.

Flickr comments are almost entirely positive, filled with gushing praise about the photograph, slightly better spelling\grammar and users are constantly heaping praise, respect and admiration and "awards" upon one another. On Flickr one even feels uncomfortable about offering any kind of criticism whatsoever of a photo, even if it is not negative. The overall impression is one of good cheer and mutual respect.

Nothing on YouTube is safe from an outright ad hominem attack for no good reason. People feel entirely comfortable telling you your video sucks, that you're a stupid faggot or use whatever manner of nasty insults they feel like posting. Nobody bothers to capitalize their sentences, use punctuation of any kind and most of the words are loaded with annoying text message acronyms.

What could possibly account for this discrepancy? Why is YouTube such a magnet for the worst in human behavior and Flickr is the opposite? My theory has been that people will behave more graciously towards one another when the communication is not solely text-based. Text-only allows people to hide behind a mask of anonimity so there is less pressure to not act like a jackass. I thought that if you knew what a person looked like from a still photo you would be nicer, and then I thought for sure if you posted a VIDEO of yourself then for sure people would be nicer since that's even closer of a representation of a real person. But apparently this theory doesn't hold on YouTube.

Why is Fabric a Femenine Material for Crafts?

Why is it that amongst the numerous crafts humans engage in, that men in general don't work with fabric or cloth? Men will work with wood, metal, stone, paper, plastic, but cloth—not so much. Why is that? Men don't sew things or knit things; the only time I've ever seen a man sew something was a leather motorcycle seat on a TV show. But by and large men just don't like joining two bits of cloth with thread whereas they will gladly join wood or weld sheets of metal together. These are all sweeping generalizations I know, and I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions but it would seem that the overriding consensus is that fabric is in the realm of femenine things. It just seems odd. But in my own experience there is some kind of biological repulsion to sewing. My mom once showed me how to crochet, but it was like showing a dog a card trick. I held the needles as if they were artifacts from another universe…my mind could not figure out how to use them. It was a hopeless thing. But in the hands of a woman she had created a hat within minutes. How is it that these skills are so seemingly restricted by gender?

You're

your
possessive adjective
1 belonging to or associated with the person or people that the speaker is addressing : what is your name?
2 belonging to or associated with any person in general : the sight is enough to break your heart.
• informal used to denote someone or something that is familiar or typical of its kind : I'm just your average Joe | she is one of your chatty types.
3 ( Your) used when addressing the holder of certain titles : Your Majesty | Your Eminence.
ORIGIN Old English ēower, genitive of gē (see ye 1 ), of Germanic origin; related to German euer.

you're
contraction of you are
"You're an angel, Deb!"

Ur
an ancient Sumerian city, formerly on the Euphrates River, in southern Iraq. One of the oldest cities in Mesopotamia, dating from the 4th millennium bc, it reached its zenith in the late 3rd millennium bc.

Thanks A Lot, America!

Way to go America, now Al Jourgenson is out of a job! Now we'll have to wait almost a decade for the next Ministry record!

Blog Not Updated, Nobody Concerned

Absolutely nobody on planet earth noticed the lack of enlargement to the Mountain Of Garbage when Brother Theodore's Monastery Of Reason was not updated for a really long time. Now, being updated, nobody on planet earth notices the now larger Mountain Of Garbage. But trust me, it's bigger now. You just can't tell is all.

I Am Not A Grammar Nazi

Complaining about stuff and adding to the "Mountain Of Garbage" is seemingly the whole point of this blog. (Unless I am remembering wrong, this "mountain of garbage" reference came from a lecture from Paul A. Cantor at the Mises.org site. I'm not 100% certain, but I think that's where I got it from. To paraphrase, he was talking about how culture produces a mountain of garbage with only a few really good things at the top. For the most part I agree; the proliferation of mass communication technology has bypassed the conventional filtering processes and allowed the average schmoe to self-publish whatever the hell he wants. This is both a blessing and a curse and a continual source of conflict to me personally.) But I digress…

So on the topic of complaining, some of the things that really stick in my craw are: Bad spelling, bad punctuation and bad grammar. Especially when it comes from native, monolingual English speakers. Bilingual\multi-lingual people can usually get a free pass, as they are superior to me and thus I have less authority to criticize their mistakes. And most of the time the non-native-English writers will apologize for their English in a quick disclaimer. This courtesy is never employed by the shitty native English writer, but perhaps it should!

I don't demand perfection from people, but a reasonable grasp of proper English is not too much to ask. Some people's internet communication is just abysmal! No capitalization of proper nouns, commas and periods all over the place, excessive exclamation marks, lack of proper spacing…the list goes on. At worst it can completely confuse the reader, but more often than not you understand full well what they're saying, but you lose respect for them. The impression they give is one of laziness and carelessness. Their message is obfuscated when they annoy the reader with sloppy writing.

Unfortunately when you raise even a little hell on this issue the backlash and dismissal is almost guaranteed. You instantly become tarred with "Grammar Nazi". To point out someone's shitty English skills is equated with fascism. People are focused on the content alone, and the presentation doesn't seem to matter at all. It seems like a good thing, like a tolerant and understanding thing. Or is it just as lazy as the poor writers making the mistakes? Who is the "Bad Guy" here? Am I being an asshole for raising the issue? Common practice seems to be "shoot the messenger" instead of acknowledging the shittiness of the offending English.

Bad writing did not fly when we were in school, but out here in the real world we've abandoned our standards and put up with a continually degrading standard of written communication. Reading the web today makes your brain function as a digital converter; no matter how garbled the signal is our internal "error-correction" is engaged and we get the message anyway. I believe this is the root definition of "Half-Ass"; accomplishing your purpose, but with poor execution. One might blame text messaging on cell phones, but I think this is a separate issue. There are those who might slip text messaging-style codes into formal writing, but the people I'm talking about are the everyday slobs who apparently can't put down a cohesive thought properly.

So now you might be thinking, "geez--what a self rightchus blowhard!!!!...who, care's man!?!?" But dammit, I am not a Grammar Nazi! I am not trying to forcibly push some unrealistic standard down people's throats or trying to make the world conform to my world view. I only ask that you adhere to the standards which have been established over time. Language is not some political ideal created by fiat and handed down from on high, it's a complex and evolving thing. The standards and rules which arise from it are organic and natural, they are not arbitrary rules for their own sake. If they were then I would be The Heavy to keep hammering the issue, but it's not like that. So that's why I don't feel that I am being fascist or oppressive when I criticize bad writing. If you just spend a little extra effort you can improve your writing.

Look at YouTube comments for an example of how far gone things can get. This is a bottomless wellspring of abysmally written English. (in addition to the often ludicrous content-based things people say) People are always screeching at each other on YouTube, it's usually constant conflict. Perhaps the reason is that the majority of the population are morons; but putting my pet theory aside for a moment, could another reason be that people's sloppy writing is causing an unnecessary friction point? If people took their time and crafted their thoughts with more care would relations improve?

Everyone can make mistakes, people can make typos, there's nothing evil about that. But continual, consistently poor writing can and should be fixed. I can't assume to know everyone's story, maybe people had a bad education or something, but my feeling is that many of these people are smart, but lazy. I don't expect perfection, but I at least would like to see people CARE that their writing needs improvement and be willing to address the problem. Willful ignorance is truly a nasty thing. To write a bunch of slop and then defend yourself as if it didn't matter is really indefensible.

You're also probably saying, "Jeez man.,,U gotta pick UR battle's. It doesen't matter in teh big picture dOOD, just chill out!!!!!! dont get all bent out of shape over spellinj!" Yeah well, it's this kind of passive contempt and apathy which perpetuates the problem.

Cumulus Crashed Without Corrupting The Database!!!

For the FIRST TIME EVER Cumulus Server took a dump and DID NOT CORRUPT THE DATABASE!!! This has NEVER happened before! NEVER! I was being super-careful and backing up after every addition almost and when it fucked up I knew I was only a couple records behind, but by a seeming mircacle the database was not red!!! WOW!

It seems that what's fucking it up is that there's two people modifying records, me adding and updating and another guy changing status on records. Gee a real tall order, two people working at the same time. Lame Canto, lame.

No Escape

I want a computer with a true Escape key. An escape key which really works. They give you all sorts of buttons and commands to stop things in their tracks, but they don't work. I want the escape key to bring whatever action is in progress to STOP immediately. Not soon, not in 100 milliseconds, not after you're done doing whatever it is I told you to do before, NOW. INSTANTLY. The fire alarm is ringing and I don't care if you're in the shower, you have to leave NOW. A real escape key with no delay. We can only do this with computers but so often they fail to listen.

They told me you could cancel all print jobs by typing "cancel -a -" in the terminal. It doesn't work. The print job is still being sent. They gave me a trash can button on the printer. It said, "Resetting" It lied. it still wants to print. YOU CANNOT KILL THE PRINT JOB, IT MUST PRINT NO MATTER WHAT!!!

If you fuck up a print job you have to power down everything. There is no cancel, you made one mistake and you're dead. I don't know where the data is coming from, but the printer is getting something and it's bound and determined to print it.

If It's Too Loud You're NOT Too Old!

Are you sick and tired of shitty, blaring, over-compressed records? Not data compression, not MPEG or anything, I'm talking good old fashioned audio. Peak-limiting, where digital audio is slammed to the limit to make it louder. But at what cost? Well, by making all the loudest bits QUIETER and the quiet bits LOUDER. What does this do to the music? In moderation and on individual instruments compression can make it sound better. But it is NOT being used in moderation, it's being abused. The entire mix is being crushed to the max. So yeah it is louder, it's in-your-face, but it has no power, it has no teeth. It's not so much a buzzsaw blade as it is a fine sanding disc. They've robbed you of the sound of the real world and made it into this artificial, flat thing with all the life squeezed out of it. At best you'll just have lame-sounding albums of otherwise good music, at worst you'll prematurely wreck your hearing by beating your eardrums to death with this crap.

Loudness is good, but loudness without quiet is only a ying without the yang. Hopefully like-minded people can stem the idiot tide. These folks are fighting the good fight:

Turn Me Up!
LOUDNESS WAR!!!

The most vulgar and offensive thing about this issue is that it built on a fundamental lie; that listeners choose music based upon volume. This pre-supposes that all listeners are COMPLETE IDIOTS! Are you an idiot? I doubt it. Are your musical tastes based upon volume? I don't think such a person exists. There are many idiots in this world but I don't think anyone has ever bought a record based solely on how loud it was in comparision to another record. This is nonsense and anyone who promotes the idea that their record will not be as successful as band "X" because it's not as loud IS a COMPLETE IDIOT! That is a non-existent issue that absolutely does not work in the real world. It's absurd theoretical nonsense! It does not apply, everyone and their grandmother understands the concept of a volume control. Everyone knows that THEY control the level. I don't care how crappy your taste in music might be, but I do know that you aren't choosing what to listen to based on loudness.

These idiots act like making music is the same as competetive sports. This isn't the long jump or a car race, you don't achieve success in the music business because you are the loudest. You achieve it because people like the content. You achieve it for a myriad of reasons, but one of those reasons is NOT loudness. Record industry insiders might care about this shit, but the consumer just doesn't.

The existence of software controls to combat average level disparity between albums in iTunes is evidence that overcompressed albums are a PROBLEM and an ANNOYANCE to the user, not a positive benefit. People don't actually want huge jumps in average level between songs. They want a fairly consistent baseline. That doesn't mean a string quartet has to be as loud as a rock record, it just means that people get spooked when something comes on that blows down the walls and they have to scramble for the volume knob.

So what is your loud-ass mastered record reduced to when the consumer takes things into his own hands with the volume knob and Replay Gain? A WEAK, QUIET RECORD WITH NO BALLS. Way to go music industry, you just did the exact opposite of what you wanted to do. You might as well go work for a federal agency! Sheesh!

You've already lost the race anyway as Exit-13 already released the loudest track years ago, with a completely clipped, over-level noise bed, breaking the Redbook standard and having a warning label on the disc that it could damage your stereo. It was a silly stunt. They beat you. Great. Can we go back to the days of proper technique now? Thanks, sure do appreciate it.

Hooray For FedEx

Unprecedented! At exactly 8:09PM, yes PM, you know, when its dark out, I heard a knock at my door and found of all things, the FedEx guy! Wow! My package was scheduled to arrive today after a poorly-thought-out choice on my part to have it sent to my home address. (I thought I would be on vacation at the time, but I was wrong.) So I fully expected it to bounce whilst I was at work today and have him come 'round tomorrow again. But to show up at night, when I'm actually home, that's like a miracle! I was so caught off guard I didn't even think to give the guy a proper fruit basket or a slab of beer. I mean, the guy actually apologized thinking it was like a "late hour" or something! Wow, a super-convenient night delivery has never occured in my LIFE except for one time when I had something delivered by some obscure shipping service which cost a LOT. Too damn cool. This tears at the very fabric of society, wherein all service jobs seemingly cease at 5PM making it impossible for anyone who works 1st shift to get certain things done. It's like for a brief moment the world actually worked how I wished it would work.